Jumi Shin advances Uoft frankenproteins with new cancer funding
Uoft Mississauga researchers are building lab-created protein drugs they call “frankenproteins,” and early versions have slowed tumour growth in some aggressive cancers. Jumi Shin, an associate professor in the department of chemical and physical sciences, said the team is aiming at therapies that could be used as cancer drugs.
“Our protein drugs are potentially part of the next-generation arsenal against cancers,” Shin said. The team’s work has also drawn new support from the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research through its Cancer Therapeutic Innovation Pipeline, which provides up to $1 million over two years.
Jumi Shin’s protein design
Shin’s group builds the proteins by cutting and pasting parts of different proteins, then using rational design to shape them with detailed knowledge of related proteins’ structures and functions. In recent papers, Shin, Raneem Akel and Rama Edaibis used that approach to create a customized protein that can target a specific genetic sequence and regulate gene circuits in cells.
Another paper co-authored by Maryam Ali found that one of the team’s designer frankenproteins can inhibit the Myc/Max protein complex from binding to its DNA target site. Shin said, “This is good because Myc, in particular, goes rogue in many cancers,” and added, “And currently there is no small-molecule drug that can tackle the Myc/Max network.”
Ontario cancer funding
The new funding is meant to help move the proteins forward. Shin said, “This generous funding allows us to enlarge our collaboration and move our proteins forward.” The Ontario Institute for Cancer Research said the support could help develop next-generation protein therapies for hard-to-treat breast and ovarian cancers, especially for patients with limited options or resistance-prone disease.
The team is also using directed evolution to speed development. Shin said, “People can make libraries, even large libraries, of mutations. However, with our system, not only can you make large libraries of the particular protein you are trying to mutate and improve for future generations, but the system will also ‘choose’ the winners,” and, “We don't have to manually look at every single protein variant and make decisions, as this would be extraordinarily time- and cost-consuming. The biological system does the analysis for us. Then we take a winner and then continue to refine.”
Myc/Max in Uoft labs
Ali said, “We are expecting our proteins to be used as cancer drugs, as the pathway they inhibi”. The work is still in development, but the funding and the early tumour-slowing results put the team’s protein drugs a step closer to testing in cancers that have been hard to treat.
